An independent firm built by engineers for engineers.
The STS story doesn’t start with a company, it starts with an engineer. In 2001, at Siemens-VDO in RomaniaAdrian Valea was among the first to bring Model-Based Development into mainstream automotive software. Two decades on, after seven years building commercial formal-verification tools and a decade running his own automotive engineering firm across European OEM and Tier-1 programs, he founded STS in April 2020 with one charter: deliver functional safety and embedded engineering that meets the standard and ships the program.
The founder
Adrian Valea is the founder and managing director of STS. He is recognized as a pioneer and champion of Model-Based Software Development in mainstream automotive industry. He began his career in 2001 at Siemens-VDO Romania (now Continental Automotive), where he was instrumental in introducing the concept of Model-Based Development across the organisation.
Over the following seven years, Adrian helped develop a suite of commercial formal-verification tools that introduced advanced formal methods, automatic back-to-back testing and model and code coverage to engineering organisations worldwide. Those tools remain widely used for software verification and validation today.
Adrian is certified in ASPICE (intacs Provisional Assessor, VDA) with the Automotive SPICE for Cybersecurity add-on (intacs)Functional Safety (FSE, TÜV Rheinland) and Automotive Cybersecurity (TÜV NORD). He has implemented ASPICE and Functional Safety at system and software level across four European OEMs and one Indian OEM.
“Anyone with the right methods, the right tools, and an eagerness to learn can build anything.”
Before founding STS, Adrian built and ran his own automotive engineering company for nearly a decade, leading delivery teams of up to 50 engineers across European OEM and Tier-1 programs, and developing RE-FORMa requirements-engineering tool that anchors the V-model pipeline from requirements through Simulink, TargetLink, formal verification and dSPACE HIL. STS is the distillation of that arc: hands-on engineering, product vision and vendor-insider perspective in a single delivery team.
Why STS exists
Adrian founded STS in April 2020 with one goal: take the Model-Based Development & Functional Safety mindset out of the slide decks and make it the daily working method of a delivery team. Most consultancies stop at the training slide; STS engineers deliver the actual safety case, the actual ASPICE evidence, the actual MISRA-clean C/C++ code.
We’re built deliberately small. Senior engineers at every seat. No bench of fresh hires learning on your project. If we don’t have capacity, we’ll tell you - and refer you to someone who does.
What we deliver
The safety-critical work we run day-to-day on live Tier-1 / OEM programs, described by capability; client and program names are kept confidential:
- Functional Safety (ISO 26262), ASIL-A to ASIL-D: HARA, FSC / TSC, FMEDA, DFA, HW-SW interface, safety case, confirmation reviews.
- ASPICE process implementation & assessment readiness: SYS.2 / SYS.5, SWE.1-SWE.6, bidirectional traceability.
- High-voltage thermal-management & climate-control ECU software (48V / 800V), across multiple variants.
- Battery Management System (BMS) V-model delivery: stakeholder analysis through SWE.6 inspection reviews.
- MCU safety mechanisms, FuSa support, UDS diagnostic services.
- SW unit & qualification test capacity: back-to-back model ↔ code, MISRA-clean C/C++.
- Formal & semi-formal verification at SW-unit and system-architecture level; SFV process definition.
- Functional Safety Concept & Safety Requirements patterns.
How we’re organised
STS GmbH holds the contract and the safety responsibility. Delivery happens across five locations:
- Germany, Odelzhausen (Bayern). Adrian Valea, Founder & Managing Director. Customer-facing engagement, FuSa lead role, ASPICE assessor.
- India, Bangalore (SafetyTrust Software Technology India Pvt Ltd, founded 2020). Managing Director: Ravi Singh. SW development, model migration, SWQT, HILS, MISRA-clean C/C++.
- China, Shanghai (since 2019). Local-market delivery and support.
- Romania, Brașov. Senior delivery capacity: thermal, MBSE, formal verification, ASAM/MDF measurement analysis.
- Romania, Timișoara. Embedded software delivery and test automation.
Customers contract with STS GmbH for safety scope; technical execution flows through whichever team has the right skill mix. This gives them one safety-responsible counterparty (Adrian) and the deepest possible bench across time zones, without the typical Tier-1-supplier-of-supplier games.
How we engage
Most engagements start the same way:
- Walkthrough call (30 min). You describe the project, the standard you’re held to, the next deadline. We listen and ask precise questions.
- One-page diagnostic. Gap matrix mapped to the relevant clauses. Sent within 48 hours. Yours to keep, whether or not you hire us.
- Scoped engagement. If we’re a fit, you get a scope, a team, and a timeline. Typical engagement: 4-12 weeks audit-prep or 3-9 month embedded retainer.
- Delivery in your stack. DOORS, Polarion, PREEvision, Vector CANoe, dSPACE, Matlab / Simulink, IBM Rhapsody, Sparx Enterprise Architect, Redmine, Jira - we work where you work.
Voice-of-evidence
Every claim we put in writing traces to one of four things: a standard reference (e.g. per ISO 26262-6 §9), a specific past observation (in our last 12 audits at Tier-1 suppliers), a published source, or a quantitative metric. If we can’t cite it, we don’t write it.
Legal entity
SafetyTrust Software Technology GmbH
Odelzhausen, Bayern, Germany · founded 2020
Founder & Managing Director: Adrian Valea
Full legal details (Impressum) →